


cruel to me

by cristianoronaldo



Category: Football RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 22:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5222732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cristianoronaldo/pseuds/cristianoronaldo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>drabble college au</p>
            </blockquote>





	cruel to me

**Author's Note:**

> the thing about the name gets me. I really do have a midterm tomorrow.

He’s at the point where he has to stop what he’s doing, where it’s all or nothing and he’s shoving aside his half-empty notebook the night before a midterm and plugging in headphones and thinking about lips and eyes and the moment when he stared too long. Because open-eyed devotion is too obvious and close-mouthed love only intensifies reverence. So at the end of the day, he’s wading through lava and struggling to understand his own mind. Because he could confess to burning in the same way flames do, but that wouldn’t make the love any more possible. 

“What are you doing tonight?” It’s always the friend of a friend who asks, never direct contact until that night with the arrest, when they were watching the tall, strong boy getting cuffed while he yelled about cracking someone’s jaw and a hospital bill he couldn’t pay. Then it wasn’t “what are you doing tonight” through two people and a text; then it was, rather directly, “what happened tonight.” 

They always wanted to ask that question in a different way: what happened tonight, why are these sheets twisted, why do I love you? Why am I looking at you naked and understanding that for the first time my eyes are raw with something softer than a punch. No one wanted to talk about that sad boy with the dark past and the drugs in his pocket, which is probably why he’s that sad boy with the drugs in his pocket. Because speaking brings something to life; that sad boy is a dead boy if people brush him aside; that love is a dead love if it’s swept under the rug. 

So they go on the next day, and Iker sees him when he’s sharing fries with his friends at midnight, and he’s searching for his other friend who ran off, trying to keep track of all the almosts. “Have you seen Sergio?” he asked, out of breath and feeling too large for the space he’d been allotted. 

“Running down Caro.” 

“Are you sure you saw him?” There’s panic in his voice; his feelings are secondary, just this once. 

There’s a pause, and Cristiano gave him a look. Momentary embarrassment made way for concern. “Caro,” he said again. “I really thought I saw him.” 

And the exchange wasn’t all that important because Iker found Sergio, and everything was fine after he reprimanded him briefly about disappearing when he was drunk off his ass, and they were walking back to their dorm together when Iker realized that feeling in his chest was relief and satisfaction; Ten seconds gives you satisfaction? That’s when you know you’re fucked, and knowing this intensely and only loving more-- that’s when you’re fucked harder. 

Looking out his window at night, he wished the stars would just fall and they would plunge into darkness; maybe then it would be easier to see. Blind, feeling his way through the dark -- then finally they would find the root of all feeling and begin again. 

Every mention of him is a new shot of adrenaline. He can barely speak his name. 

“Who were you with last night?” 

He’ll speak every name but that one. 

“Wasn’t he with you also?” 

A knowing look, trembling hands, finally -- a name spoken like a dirty deed, a sin in the dark, desire stained sheets and the pain that comes later. What’s in a name, he’ll never understand, only knowing that pain and pleasure burst the same vein. It’s only syllables, it’s only letters, it’s only a formation you can breathe. This is something you can handle. Speaking is what he knows. But somehow it’s a tongue twister. It’s venom. It’s an unfamiliar language of an unfamiliar race; human no longer, he’s a stranger wandering through his sentences, tripping over mentions of the other boy and daring that name to shoot up like spring around him, tempting fate in every conversation.


End file.
